There's Always A Story

Time is wild. It’s hard to believe that just a month ago I was stumbling out of a deep and painful fog. It was shocking how quickly I started sleeping through the night again, how quickly my spirits changed. Resilience. I’m grateful for it. That said, it’s still a lot to be a human in this world. On a broader scale, we’re reckoning with fascism and narcissism, toxic patriarchal norms, and natural disasters in our headlines every day.

Part of my reset includes leaning in to people’ing Last Tuesday, on the first day of fall, I was up very early en route to Washington, DC, to do something I have never done before: Engage in a serious amount of people’ing in less than 48 hours, generally in service of my consulting practice. It felt symbolic that it was the autumn equinox — the marking of the next stage of my reset following a complete shit show of a summer.

A lot can happen in four weeks. As I wrote last week, life has been rough for several months — and in an intense gear pretty much since the start of the year. I’m so grateful to have transitioned out of that painful place. My emotional trajectory over the past four weeks — and four cakes — has been something. Baking cakes usually is therapeutic for me so I thought it would be interesting to share about the four cakes I made. When I made cakes #1 and #2, I was deep in the muck.

I have been in a rough place for several months. I’m not going to go into the details, but I can share that it has felt similar to other painfully stressful periods in my life during which my hair started falling out, I collapsed on the floor in a “stress seizure,” and I developed intense inflammation responses throughout my entire body.

I’m usually highly tuned to getting things out of my house, but we’re in a transitional phase making select acquisitions that I figured could be useful to folks here. There is, of course, a story behind this. Back in 2018 we did something that felt super adult: When Laurel and Violet moved up to the loft level in our home, we reclaimed the bedroom they used to share and created what I referred to as the Zen den.

I appear to have an all or nothing relationship with zucchini. If I purchase one or two at the grocery store with no immediate plan on how to use them, they rot in my produce drawer. Whereas if I find myself with a 20+ pound bag, I get to work. In the past month, I have purchased two massive bags of “day old picked” zucchini for $5 at a beloved farm stand.

Last week I picked up an enormous library stack, at which point one of the librarians dryly joked, “How dare you use the library for the purpose for which it was intended!” (Librarians are the freaking best!) The joy I felt in picking up that haul reminded me of two things: First, I had thought about doing a mid-year book recap and then, well, life got in the way.

Quick announcement: As I mentioned in a recent Holding The Roomnewsletter, I’ll be holding a free comms office hour next week, July 28, 2-3pm ET. Hop over to register and I’ll add you to the private calendar invite! I remember, during the run-up to leaving for college, a distinct feeling of why isn’t my mom reacting to this more? I was, admittedly, a little attention-starved in general, and also in an age-appropriate state of self-absorption.

One of my favorite things about interviewing people is the lessons that stick with me long after an essay or podcast episode is published. For a 2024 Boston Globe Magazine essay I wrote about ageism in the workplace, I had the delight of reconnecting with neuroscientist Dan Levitin, author of Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives.

As I mentioned in a recent post, life has been very full. This summer is also unusual in that I don’t have any full weeks off — not ideal, I know, but this is my current state working towards a clear, relatively near-term future vision. Laurel will also head to medical school soon — a plane instead of a train or car ride away — which is exciting and also will be a big adjustment. All of this is to say that I was deeply ready for a long weekend with my crew.